Re: Disposal of radioactive animal carcasses

[pward@iastate.edu]

>Jon Dillon of Ligand Pharmaceuticals wrote: 
>        

>        . . . some people have been grinding the animals in an industrial 
>        garbage disposal and sewering them as liquid waste.  Is this an 
>        acceptable means for disposal?  What other options are available?

Current federal regulations (10 CFR 20.2003) allow for the disposal to a 
sanitary sewer system (not private septic systems) of the concentrations in
appendix B, table 3 of 10 CFR 20 or your equivalent state regulations, unless
prohibited by your particular radioactive materials license.  The materials
must be soluable or readily dispersible, so things like radioactive
microspheres aren't permissible.  There is an annual overall limit of five
curie of tritium (H-3), one curie of carbon-14, and one curie _total_ of
everything else.  

I don't know if the procedure of grinding carcasses for disposal is common.
Iowa State University has a large garbage disposal of the type you describe,
but we're not currently using it since we have an incinerator which is 
licensed for disposal of radioactive wastes.  If you do decide to
investigate this option, you should be aware that there has been some recent
GAO investigations of the sewer disposal regulations involving criticism of
the NRC and EPA.  There may be regulatory changes coming.

Scientific Ecology Group (SEG) has an incinerator which is licensed for
commercial radwaste disposal.  I beleive they will accept combustible
radwastes and return the ash to you if you don't have political access to a
radwaste repository.  Although it's not a final answer to the problem, it's
probably better to store a small amount of ash than a lot of old animal 
carcasses.

Standard Disclaimer: The above opinions are solely my own and are worth just
what you paid for them.  If my management agrees, it's strictly coincidental
(and unusual).

---
Paul Ward
pward@iastate.edu
215 Nuclear Engineering Laboratory, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011
(515) 294-0746, (515) 294-9357 FAX